 6 Emily. My personage was a hen, and she lived at the Sunk Creek Ranch. Judge Henry's ranch was notable for several luxuries. He had milk, for example. In those days his brother Ranchman had thousands of cattle very often, but not a drop of milk saved the condensed variety. Therefore they had no butter. The judge had plenty. Next rarest to butter and milk in the cattle country were eggs, but my host had chickens. Whether this was because he had followed cock fighting in his early days or whether it was due to Mrs. Henry I cannot say. I only know that when I took a meal elsewhere I was likely to find nothing but the eternal sour-belly beans and coffee. While at Sunk Creek the omelet and the custard were frequent. The passing traveler was glad to tie his horse to the fence here and sit down to the judge's table. For its fame was as wide as Wyoming. It was an oasis in the territory's desolate bill affair. The long fences of Judge Henry's home ranch began upon Sunk Creek soon after that stream emerged from its canyon through the bow leg. It was a place always well cared for by the owner even in the days of his bachelorhood. The placid regiments of cattle lay in the cool of the cotton woods by the water or slowly moved among the sage brush feeding upon the grass that in those forever departed years was plentiful and tall. The steers came fat off his unenclosed range and fattened still more in his large pasture. While his small pasture, a field some eight miles square, was for several seasons given to the judge's horses and over this ample space there played and prospered the good colts which he raised from Paladin, his imported stallion. After he married I have been assured that his wife's influence became visible in and about the house at once. Shade trees were planted, flowers attempted, and to the chickens was added the much more troublesome turkey. I, the visitor, was pressed into service when I arrived, green from the east. I took hold of the farmyard and began building a better chicken house while the judge was off creating meadow land in his gray and yellow wilderness. When any cowboy was unoccupied, he would lounge over to my neighborhood and silently regard my carpentering. Those cow punchers bore names of various denominations. There was Honey Wigan, there was Nebraska, and Dollar Bill, and Chalk Eye, and they came from farms and cities, from Maine and from California. But the romance of American adventure had drawn them all alike to this great playground of young men, and in their courage, their generosity, and their amusement at me, they bore a close resemblance to each other. Each one would silently observe my achievements with the hammer and the chisel. Then he would retire to the bunkhouse, and presently I would overhear laughter. But this was only in the morning, in the afternoon, on many days of the summer which I spent at the Sunk Creek Ranch, I would go shooting, or ride up toward the entrance of the canyon and watch the men working on the irrigation ditches. Pleasant systems of water running in channels were being led through the soil, and there was a sound of rippling here and there among the yellow grain. The green thick alfalfa grass waved almost, it seemed, of its own accord, for the wind never blew, and when at evening the sun lay against the plain, the rift of the canyon was filled with a violet light, and the bow-leg mountains became transfigured with hues of floating and unimaginable color. The sun shone in a sky where never a cloud came, and noon was not too warm nor the dark too cool, and so for two months I went through these pleasant uneventful days, improving the chickens, an object of mirth, living in the open air, and basking in the perfection of content. I was justly styled a tenderfoot. Mrs. Henry had, in the beginning, endeavored to shield me from this humiliation, but when she found that I was inveterate in laying my inexperience of Western matters bare to all the world, begging to be enlightened upon rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, owls, blue and willow grouse, sage hens, how to rope a horse or tighten the front cinch of my saddle, and that my spirit soared into enthusiasm at the mere sight of so ordinary an animal as a white-tailed deer, she let me rush about with my firearms, and made no further effort to stave off the ridicule that my blunders perpetually earned from the ranch hands, her own humorous husband, and any chance visitor who stopped for a meal or stayed the night. I was not called by my name after the first feeble etiquette due to a stranger and his first few hours had died away. I was known simply as the tenderfoot. I was introduced to the neighborhood, a circle of eighty miles, as the tenderfoot. It was thus that Balaam, the maltreater of horses, learned to address me when he came a two-day's journey to pay a visit. And it was this name and my notorious helplessness that bid fair to end what relations I had with the Virginian. For when Judge Henry ascertained that nothing could prevent me from losing myself, that it was not uncommon for me to saunter out after breakfast with a gun, and in thirty minutes ceased to know north from south, he arranged for my protection. He detailed an escort for me, and the escort was once more the trustworthy man. The poor Virginian was taken from his work and his comrades and set to playing nurse for me. And for a while this humiliation ate into his untamed soul. It was his lugubrious lot to accompany me in my rambles, preside over my blunders, and save me from calamitously passing into the next world. He bore it in courteous silence, except when speaking was necessary. He would show me the lower ford, which I could never find for myself, generally mistaking a quicksand for it. He would tie my horse properly. He would recommend me not to shoot my rifle at a white-tailed deer in the particular moment that the outfit wagon was passing behind the animal on the further side of the brush. There was seldom a day that he was not obliged to hasten and save me from sudden death or from ridicule, which is worse. Yet never once did he lose his patience, and his gentle, slow voice and apparently lazy manner remained the same, whether we were sitting at lunch together or up in the mountain during a hunt, or whether he was bringing me back my horse which had run away because I had again forgotten to throw the reins over his head and let them trail. He'll always stand if you do that, the Virginian would say. See how my haw stays right quiet, Yanda? After such admonition he would say no more to me, but this tame nursery business was assuredly gall to him. For though utterly a man in countenance and in his self-possession and incapacity to be put at a loss, he was still boyishly proud of his wild calling, and wore his leather straps and jingled his spurs with obvious pleasure. His tiger limberness and his beauty were rich with unabated youth, and that force which lurked beneath his surface must often have curbed his intolerance of me. In spite of what I knew must be his opinion of me, the tender foot, my liking for him grew, and I found his silent company more and more agreeable. That he had spells of talking I had already learned at Medicine Bow, but his present taciturnity might almost have effaced this impression had I not happened to pass by the bunkhouse one evening after dark when Honey Wigan and the rest of the cowboys were gathered inside it. That afternoon the Virginian and I had gone duck-shooting. We had found several in a beaver dam, and I had killed two as they sat close together. But they floated against the breastwork of sticks out in the water some four feet deep, where the escaping current might carry them down the stream. The judge's red setter had not accompanied us because she was expecting a family. We don't want her along anyways, the cow puncher had explained to me. She runs around mighty irresponsible, and she'll stand a prairie dog about as often as she'll stand a bird. She's a trifling animal. My anxiety to own the ducks caused me to pitch into the water with all my clothes on, and subsequently crawl out a slippery triumphant, weltering heap. The Virginian's serious eyes had rested upon this spectacle of mud, but he expressed nothing as usual. They ain't overly good eatin', he observed, tying the birds to his saddle. They're divers. Divers, I exclaimed. Why didn't they dive? I reckoned they was young ones and had an experience. Well, I said, crestfallen, but attempting to be humorous. I did the diving myself. But the Virginian made no comment. He handed me my double-barreled English gun, which I was about to leave deserted on the ground behind me, and we rode home in our usual silence, the mean little white-breasted, sharp-billed divers dangling from his saddle. It was in the bunkhouse that he took his revenge. As I passed, I heard his gentle voice silently achieving some narrative to an attentive audience, and just as I came by the open window where he sat on his bed in shirt and drawers, his back to me, I heard his concluding words. And the hat on his head was the one mark shoja he weren't a snapin' turtle. The anecdote met with instantaneous success, and I hurried away into the dark. The next morning I was occupied with the chickens. Two hens were fighting to sit on some eggs that a third was daily laying, in which I did not want hatched. And for the third time I had kicked Emily off seven potatoes she had rolled together and was determined to raise I know not what sort of family from. She was shrieking about the henhouse as the Virginian came in to observe, I suspect, what I might be doing now that could be useful for him to mention in the bunkhouse. He stood a while, and at length said, we lost our best rooster when Mrs. Henry came to live here. I paid no attention. He was a right elegant diminicker, he continued. I felt a little riled about the snapping turtle and showed no interest in what he was saying, but continued my functions among the hens. This unusual silence of mine seemed to elicit unusual speech from him. You see, that rooster, he'd always lived round here when the judge was a bachelor, and he never seen no ladies or any persons wearing female garments. You ain't got rheumatism, sir. Me? No. I reckon maybe them little odd divers you got damp going after. He paused. Oh, no, not in the least, thank you. You seem sort of grave this mornin', and I'm certainly glad it ain't them divers. Well, the rooster, I inquired finally. Oh, him! He weren't raised where he could see petticoats. Mrs. Henry, she come here from the railroad with the judge after dark. Next mornin' early she walked out to view her new home, and the rooster was affeedin' by the door, and he seen her. Well, sir, he screeched that awful iron out of the bunkhouse, and he just went over the fence and took down a sunk creek shoutin' fire right along. He has never come back. There's a hen over there now that has no judgment, I said, indicating Emily. She had got herself outside the house and was on the bars of a corral. Her vociferations reduced to an occasional squawk. I told him about the potatoes. I never knowed her name before, said he. That runaway rooster, he hated her. And she hated him, same as she hates him all. I named her myself, said I, after I came to notice her, particularly. There's an old maid at home who's charitable and belongs to the cruelty to animals, and she never knows whether she had better a cross in front of a street car or weight. I named the hen after her. Does she ever lay eggs? The Virginian had not troubled his head over the poultry. Well, I don't believe she knows how. I think she came near bein' a rooster. She sure manly lookin', said the Virginian. We had walked toward the corral, and he was now scrutinizing Emily with interest. She was an egregious fowl. She was huge and gaunt, with great yellow beak, and she stood straight and alert in the manner of responsible people. There was something wrong with her tail. It slanted far to one side, one feather in it, twice as long as the rest. Feathers on her breast there were none. These had been worn entirely off by her habit of sitting upon potatoes and other rough, abnormal objects. And this lent to her appearance an air of being decollete, singularly at variance with her otherwise prudish ensemble. Her eye was remarkably bright, but somehow it had an outraged expression. It was as if she went about the world perpetually scandalized over the doings that fell beneath her notice. Her legs were blue, long, and remarkably stout. She ought to wear knickerbockers, murmured the Virginian. She'd look a-heat better in some of them college students, and she'll set on potatoes, you say? She thinks she can hatch out anything. I found her with onions, and last Tuesday I caught her on two balls of soap. In the afternoon the tall cow puncher and I rode out to get an antelope. After an hour, during which he was completely taciturn, he said, I reckon maybe this ye lonesome country ain't been healthy for Emily to live in. It ain't for some humans. Them old trappers in the mountains get skewed in the head mighty often, and talks out loud when nobody's nire in a hundred miles. Emily has not been solitary, I replied. There are forty chickens here. That's so, said he, it don't explainer. He fell silent again, riding beside me easy and indolent in the saddle. His long figure looks so loose and inert that the swift light spring he made to the ground seemed an impossible feat. He had seen an antelope where I saw none. Take a shot yourself, I urged him, as he motioned me to be quick. You never shoot when I'm with you. I ain't here for that, he answered. Now you've let him get away on you. The antelope had in truth departed. Why, he said to my protest, I can hit them things any day. What's your notion is to Emily? I can't account for her, I replied. Well, he said musingly, and then his mind took one of those particular turns that made me love him. Taylor ought to see her. She'd be just the school marm for Bear Creek. She's not much like the eating house lady at Medicine Bow, I said. He gave a hilarious chuckle. No, Emily knows nothing of them joys. So you have no notion about her? Well, I've got one. I reckon maybe she was hatched after a big thunderstorm. In a big thunderstorm, I exclaimed. Yes, don't you know about them and what they'll do to eggs? A big case of lightning and thunder will addle eggs and keep them from hatching. And I expect one came along, and all the other eggs of Emily's set didn't hatch out, but got plum-addled. And she happened not to get addled that far, and so she just managed to make it through. But she certainly ain't got a strong head. I fear she has not, said I. Mighty honorable intentions, he observed. If she can't make out to lay anything, she wants to hatch something and be a mother anyways. I wonder what relation the law considers that a hen is to the chicken she hatched but did not lay, I inquired. The Virginian made no reply to this frivolous suggestion. He was gazing over the wide landscape gravely and with apparent inattention. He invariably saw gain before I did and was off his horse and crouched among the sage while I was still getting my left foot clear of the stirrup. I succeeded in killing an antelope, and we rode home with the head and hindquarters. No, said he. It's sure the thunder and not the lonesomeness. How do you like the lonesomeness yourself? I told him that I liked it. I could not live without it now, he said. This has got into my system. He swept his hand out at the vast space of world. I went back home to see my folks once. Mother was dying slow and she wanted me. I stayed a year. But then Virginia mountains could please me no more. After she was gone, I told my brothers and sisters goodbye. We like each other well enough. But I reckon I'll not go back. We found Emily seated upon a collection of green California peaches, which the judge had brought from the railroad. I don't mind her anymore, I said. I'm sorry for her. I've been sorry for her right along, said the Virginian. She does hate the roosters so. And he said that he was making a collection of every class of object, which he found her treating as eggs. But Emily's egg industry was terminated abruptly one morning, and her unquestioned energies diverted to a new channel. A turkey, which had been sitting in the root house, appeared with 12 children and a family of bantams occurred almost simultaneously. Emily was importantly scratching the soil inside Paladin's corral when the bantam tribe of newly born came by down the lane, and she caught sight of them through the bars. She crossed the corral at a run and intercepted two of the chicks that were trailing somewhat behind their real mama. These she undertook to appropriate and assumed a high tone with the bantam, who was smaller and hence obliged to retreat with her still numerous family. I interfered and put matters straight. But the adjustment was only temporary. In an hour I saw Emily immensely busy with two more bantams, leading them about and taking a care of them, which I must admit seemed perfectly efficient. And now came the first incident that made me suspect her to be demented. She had proceeded with her changelings behind the kitchen, where one of the irrigation ditches ran under the fence from the hay field to supply the house with water. Some distance along this ditch inside the field were the twelve turkeys in the short recently cut stubble. Again Emily set off instantly like a deer. She left the dismayed bantams behind her. She crossed the ditch with one jump of her stout blue legs, flew over the grass, and was at once among the turkeys, where, with an instinct of maternity as undiscriminating as it was reckless, she attempted to huddle some of them away. But this other mama was not a bantam, and in a few moments Emily was entirely routed in her attempt to acquire a new variety of family. This spectacle was witnessed by the Virginian and myself, and it overcame him. He went speechless across to the bunkhouse, by himself, and sat on his bed, while I took the abandoned bantams back to their own circle. I have often wondered what the other fowls thought of all this. Some impression it certainly did make upon them. The notion may seem out of reason to those who have never closely attended to other animals than man, but I am convinced that any community which shares some of our instincts will share some of the resulting feelings, and that birds and beasts have conventions, the breach of which startles them. If there be anything in evolution, this would seem inevitable. At all events, the chicken house was upset during the following several days. Emily disturbed now the bantams and now the turkeys, and several of these latter had died, though I will not go so far as to say that this was the result of her misplaced attentions. Nevertheless, I was seriously thinking of locking her up till the brood should be a little older, when another event happened and all was suddenly at peace. The judge's setter came in one morning wagging her tail. She had had her puppies, and she now took us to where they were housed, in between the floor of a building and the hollow ground. Emily was seated on the whole litter. No, I said to the judge, I am not surprised she is capable of anything. In her new choice of offspring, this hen had at length encountered an unworthy parent. The setter was bored by her own puppies. She found the hole under the house an obscure and monotonous residence compared with the dining room, and our company more stimulating and sympathetic than that of her children. A much petted contact with our superior race had developed her dog intelligence above its natural level and turned her into an unnatural, neglectful mother who was constantly forgetting her nursery for worldly pleasures. At certain periods of the day she repaired to the puppies and fed them, but came away when this perfunctory ceremony was accomplished, and she was glad enough to have a governess bring them up. She made no quarrel with Emily, and the two understood each other perfectly. I have never seen among animals any arrangement so civilized and so perverted. It made Emily perfectly happy. To see her sitting all day jealously spreading her wings over some blind puppies was sufficiently curious, but when they became large enough to come out from under the house and tautle about in the proud hen's wake, I longed for some distinguished naturalist. I felt that our ignorance made us inappropriate spectators of such a phenomenon. Emily scratched and clucked, and the puppies ran to her, pawed her with their fat limp little legs, and retreated beneath her feathers in their games of hide and seek. Conceive, if you can, what confusion must have reigned in their infant minds as to who the setter was? I reckon they think she's the wet nurse, said the Virginian. When the puppies grew to be boisterous, I perceived that Emily's mission was approaching its end. They were too heavy for her, and their increasing scope of playfulness was not in her line. Once or twice they knocked her over, upon which she arose and pecked them severely, and they retired to a safe distance, and sitting in a circle yapped at her. I think they began to suspect that she was only a hen after all. So Emily resigned with an indifference which surprised me until I remembered that if it had been chickens, she would have ceased to look after them by this time. But here she was again, out of a job, as the Virginian said. She's raised them puppies for that trifling setter, and now she'll be hunting around for something else useful to do that ain't in her business. Now there were other broods of chickens to arrive in the henhouse, and I did not desire any more bantam and turkey performances. So to avoid confusion, I played a trick upon Emily. I went down to Sunk Creek and fetched some smooth oval stones. She was quite satisfied with these, and passed a quiet day with them in a box. This was not fair, the Virginian asserted. You ain't going to just leave her fooled that away. I did not see why not. Why, she raised them puppies all right. Ain't she showed she knows how to be a mother anyways? Emily ain't going to get her time took up for nothing while I'm around here, said the cow puncher. He laid a gentlehold of Emily and tossed her to the ground. She, of course, rushed out among the corrals in a great state of nerves. I don't see what good you do meddling, I protested. To this he dained no reply, but removed the unresponsive stones from the straw. Why, if they ain't right warm, he exclaimed plaintively. The poor, diluted son of a gun. And with this unusual description of a lady, he sent the stones sailing like a line of birds. I'm regular getting stuck on Emily, continued the Virginian. They needn't to laugh. Don't you see she's got sort of human feelings and desires? I always know Hoss's was like people and my collie, of course. It is kind of foolish, I expect, but that hen's going to have a real egg directly right now to set on. With this he removed one from beneath another hen. We'll have Emily raise this here, said he, so she can put in her time profitable. It was not accomplished at once, for Emily, singularly enough, would not consent to stay in the box when she had been routed. At length we found another retreat for her, and in these new surroundings, with a new piece of work for her to do, Emily sat on the one egg which the Virginian had so carefully provided for her. Thus, as in all genuine tragedies, was the stroke of fate wrought by chance and the best intentions. Emily began sitting on Friday afternoon near sundown. Early next morning my sleep was gradually dispersed by a sound unearthly and continuous. Now it dwindled, receding to a distance. Again it came near, took a turn, drifted to the other side of the house, then evidently whatever it was passed my door close and I jumped upright in my bed. The high tense strain of vibration, nearly but not quite a musical note, was like the threatening scream of machinery, the weaker, and I bounded out of the house in my pajamas. There was Emily, disheveled, walking wildly about, her one egg miraculously hatched within ten hours. The little lonely yellow ball of down went cheaping along behind, following its mother as best it could. What then had happened to the established period of incubation? For an instant the thing was like a portent and I was near joining Emily in her horrid surprise when I saw how it all was. The Virginian had taken an egg from a hen which had already been sitting for three weeks. I dressed in haste, hearing Emily's distracted outcry. It steadily sounded without perceptible pause for breath, and marked her erratic journey back and forth through stables, lanes, and corrals. The shrill disturbance brought all of us out to see her, and in the hen house I discovered the new brood making its appearance punctually. But this natural explanation could not be made to the crazed hen. She continued to scour the premises, her slant tail and its one preposterous feather waving as she aimlessly went, her stout legs stepping high with an unnatural motion. Her head lifted nearly off her neck, and in her brilliant yellow eye an expression of more than outrage at this overturning of a natural law. Behind her entirely ignored and neglected trailed the little progeny. She never looked at it. We went about our various affairs and all through the clear sunny day that unending metallic scream pervaded the premises. The Virginian put out food and water for her, but she tasted nothing. I am glad to say that the little chicken did. I do not think that the hen's eyes could see, except in the way that sleepwalkers do. The heat went out of the air, and in the canyon the violet light began to show. Many hours had gone, but Emily never ceased. Now she suddenly flew up in a tree and sat there with her noise still going. But it had risen lately several notes into a slim, acute level of terror, and was not like machinery anymore, nor like any sound I ever heard before or since. Below the tree stood the bewildered little chicken, cheaping and making tiny jumps to reach its mother. Yes, said the Virginian. It's comical. Even her egg acted different from anybody else's. He paused and looked across the wide mellowing plane with the expression of easygoing gravity so common with him. Then he looked at Emily in the tree and the yellow chicken. It ain't so damned funny, said he. We went into supper, and I came out to find the hen lying on the ground, dead. I took the chicken to the family in the henhouse. No, it was not altogether funny anymore, and I did not think less of the Virginian when I came upon him surreptitiously digging a little hole in the field for her. I have buried some citizens here and there, said he, that I have respected less. And when the time came for me to leave Sunk Creek, my last word to the Virginian was, don't forget Emily. I ain't likely to, responded the cow puncher. She is just one of them parables. Save when he fell into his native idioms, which they told me his wanderings had well nigh obliterated until that year's visit to his home again revived them in his speech. He had now for a long while dropped the seh and all other barriers between us. We were thorough friends and had exchanged many confidences both of the flesh and of the spirit. He even went the length of saying that he would write me the Sunk Creek news if I would send him a line now and then. I have many letters from him now. Their spelling came to be faultless, and in the beginning was little worse than George Washington's. The judge himself drove me to the railroad by another way, across the Bolleg Mountains and south through Balem's Ranch and Drybone to Rock Creek. I'll be very homesick, I told him. Come and pull the latch string whenever you please, he bade me. I wished that I might. No lotus land ever cast its spell upon man's heart more than Wyoming had enchanted mine. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Virginian This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Virginian by Owen Wister Chapter 7 Through Two Snows Dear friend, thus in the spring the Virginian wrote me, Yours received. It must be a poor thing to be sick. That time I was shot at Cagnata de Oro would have made me sick if it had been a little lower or if I was much of a drinking man. You will be well if you give over city life and take a hunt with me about August or say September, for then the elk will be out of the velvet. Things do not please me here just now, and I am going to settle it by bamboocing, but I would be glad to see you. It would be pleasure, not business, for me to show you plenty elk and get you strong. I am not cry-babying to the judge or making any kick about things. He will want me back after he has swallowed a little tincture of time. It is the best dose I know. Now to answer your questions. Yes, the Emily Hinn might have ate loco weed if hens do. I never saw anything but stock and horses get poisoned with loco weed. No, the school is not built yet. They are always big talkers on Bear Creek. No, I have not seen Steve. He is around, but I am sorry for him. Yes, I have been to Medicine Bow. I had the welcome I wanted. Do you remember a man I played poker and he did not like it? He is working on the upper ranch near Ten's sleep. He does not amount to a thing except with weaklings. Uncle Huey has twins. The boys got him vexed some about it, but I think they are his. Now that is all I know today, and I would like to see you poker presently as they say at Los Cruces. There is no sense in you being sick. The rest of this letter discussed the best meeting point for us should I decide to join him for a hunt. That hunt was made, and during the weeks of its duration something was said to explain a little more fully the Virginians' difficulty at the Sunk Creek Ranch, and his reason for leaving his excellent employer, the judge. Not much was said, to be sure. The Virginians seldom spent many words upon his own troubles, but it appeared that owing to some jealousy of him on the part of the foreman or the assistant foreman, he found himself continually doing another man's work, but under circumstances so skillfully arranged that he got neither credit nor pay for it. He would not stoop to telling tales out of school. Therefore his ready and prophetic mind devised the simple expedient of going away altogether. He calculated that Judge Henry would gradually perceive there was a connection between his departure and the cessation of the satisfactory work. After a judicious interval it was his plan to appear again in the neighborhood of Sunk Creek and await results. Concerning Steve, he would say no more than he had written, but it was plain that for some cause this friendship had ceased. Money for his services during the hunt he positively declined to accept, asserting that he had not worked enough to earn his board, and the expedition ended in an untraveled corner of the Yellowstone Park near Pitchstone Canyon, where he and young Lynn McLean and others were witnesses of the sad and terrible drama that has been elsewhere chronicled. His prophetic mind had foreseen correctly the shape of events at Sunk Creek. The only thing that it had not foreseen was the impression to be made upon the judge's mind by his conduct. Toward the close of that winter Judge and Mrs. Henry visited the east. Through them a number of things became revealed. The Virginian was back at Sunk Creek. And, said Mrs. Henry, he would never have left you if I had had my way, Judge H. No, Madam Judge, retorted her husband. I am aware of that, for you have always appreciated a fine appearance in a man. I certainly have, confessed the lady, mirthfully, and the way he used to come bringing my horse with the ridges of his black hair so carefully brushed and that blue-spotted handkerchief tied so effectively round his throat, was something that I missed a great deal after he went away. Thank you, my dear, for this warning. I have plans that will keep him absent quite constantly for the future. And then they spoke less flightily. I always knew, said the lady, that you had found a treasure when that man came. The Judge laughed. When it dawned on me, he said, how cleverly he caused me to learn the value of his services by depriving me of them, I doubted what I said, whether it was safe to take him back. Safe, cried Mrs. Henry. Safe, my dear, because I'm afraid he is pretty nearly as shrewd as I am, and that's rather dangerous and a subordinate. The Judge laughed again. But his action regarding the man they call Steve has made me feel easy. And then it came out that the Virginian was supposed to have discovered in some way that Steve had fallen from the grace of that particular honesty which respects another man's cattle. It was not known for certain, but calves had begun to disappear in cattle land, and cows had been found killed, and calves with one brand upon them had been found with mothers that bore the brand of another owner. This industry was taking root in cattle land, and of those who practiced it some were beginning to be suspected. Steve was not quite fully suspected yet, but that the Virginian had parted company with him was definitely known, and neither man would talk about it. There was the further news that the Bear Creek School House at length stood complete, floor, walls, and roof, and that a lady from Bennington, Vermont, a friend of Mrs. Balem's, had quite suddenly decided that she would try her hand at instructing the new generation. The Judge and Mrs. Henry knew this because Mrs. Balem had told them of her disappointment that she would be absent from the ranch on Butte Creek when her friend arrived, and therefore unable to entertain her. The friend's decision had been quite suddenly made, and must form the subject of the next chapter. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Virginian This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Virginian by Owen Wister Chapter 8 The Sincere Spinster I do not know with which of the two estimates, Mr. Taylor's or the Virginians, you agreed. Did you think that Ms. Mary Starkwood of Bennington, Vermont, was 40 years of age? That would have been an error. At the time she wrote the letter to Mrs. Balem, of which letters certain portions have been quoted in these pages, she was in her 21st year, or, to be more precise, she had been 20 some eight months previous. Now, it is not usual for young ladies of 20 to contemplate a journey of nearly 2,000 miles to a country where Indians and wild animals live unchained, unless they are to make such journey in company with a protector, or are going to a protector's arms at the other end, nor is school teaching on Bear Creek a usual ambition for such young ladies. But Ms. Mary Starkwood was not a usual young lady for two reasons. First, there was her dissent. Had she so wished, she could have belonged to any number of those patriotic societies of which our American ears have grown accustomed to hear so much. She could have been enrolled in the Boston Tea Party, the Ethan Allen Ticonderogas, the Green Mountain Daughters, the Saratoga Sacred Circle, and the Confederated Colonial Shotilanes. She traced direct dissent from the historic lady whose name she bore, that Molly Stark, who was not a widow after the battle where her Lord, her Captain John, battled so bravely as to send his name thrilling down through the blood of generations of schoolboys. This ancestress was her chief claim to be a member of those shining societies which I have enumerated. But she had been willing to join none of them, although invitations to do so were by no means lacking. I cannot tell you her reason. Still, I can tell you this. When these societies were much spoken of in her presence, her very sprightly countenance became more sprightly, and she added her words of praise or respect to the general chorus. But when she received an invitation to join one of these bodies, her countenance, as she read the missive, would assume an expression which was known to her friends as sticking her nose in the air. I do not think that Molly's reason for refusing to join could have been a truly good one. I should add that her most precious possession, a treasure which accompanied her even if she went away for only one night's absence, was an heirloom, a little miniature portrait of the old Molly Stark, painted when that far-off dame must have been scarce more than twenty. And when each summer the young Molly went to Dunbarton, New Hampshire to pay her established family visit to the last survivors of her connection who bore the name of Stark, no word that she heard in the Dunbarton houses pleased her so much as when a certain great aunt would take her by the hand and, after looking with fond intentness at her, pronounced, My dear, you're getting more like the general's wife every year you live. I suppose you mean my nose, Molly would then reply. Nonsense, child, you have the family length of nose, and I've never heard that it has disgraced us. But I don't think I'm tall enough for it. There now run to your room and dress for tea, the Starks have always been punctual. And after this annual conversation, Molly would run to her room and there in its privacy, even at the risk of falling below the punctuality of the Starks, she would consult two objects for quite a minute before she began to dress. These objects, as you have already correctly guessed, were the miniature of the general's wife and the looking-glass. So much for Ms. Molly Starkwood's descent. The second reason why she was not a usual girl was her character. This character was the result of pride and family pluck battling with family hardship. Just one year before she was to be presented to the world, not the great metropolitan world, but a world that would have made her welcome and done her homage at its little dances and little dinners in Troy and Rutland and Burlington, Fortune had turned her back upon the woods. Their possessions had never been great ones, but they had sufficed. From generation to generation the family had gone to school like gentle folk, dressed like gentle folk, used the speech in ways of gentle folk, and, as gentle folk, lived and died. And now the mills failed. Instead of thinking about her first evening dress, Molly found pupils to whom she could give music lessons. She found handkerchiefs that she could embroider with initials, and she found fruit that she could make into preserves. That machine, called the typewriter, was then in existence, but the day of women typewriters had, as yet, scarcely begun to dawn, else I think Molly would have preferred this occupation to the handkerchiefs and the preserves. There were people in Bennington who wondered how Miss Wood could go about, from house to house, teaching the piano, and she, a lady. There always have been such people, I suppose, because the world must always have a rubbish heap. But we need not dwell upon them further than to mention one other remark of theirs regarding Molly. They all, with one voice, declared that Sam Bannet was good enough for anybody who did fancy embroidery at five cents a letter. I daresay he had a great grandmother, quite as good as hers, remarked Mrs. Flint, the wife of the Baptist minister. That's entirely possible, returned the Episcopal rector of Husik, only we don't happen to know who she was, the rector was a friend of Molly's. After this little observation, Mrs. Flint said no more, that continued her purchases in the store where she and the rector had happened to find themselves together. Later she stated to a friend that she had always thought the Episcopal church a snobbish one, and now she knew it. So public opinion went on being indignant over Molly's conduct. She could stoop to work for money, and yet she pretended to hold herself above the most rising young man in Husik Falls, and all just because there was a difference in their grandmothers. Was this the reason at the bottom of it, the very bottom? I cannot be certain, because I have never been a girl myself. Perhaps she thought that work is not a stooping, and that marriage may be. Perhaps, but all I really know is that Molly Wood continued cheerfully to embroider the handkerchiefs, make the preserves, teach the pupils, and firmly to reject Sam Bannett. Thus it went on until she was twenty. There certain members of her family began to tell her how rich Sam was going to be, was indeed already. It was at this time that she wrote Mrs. Balaam her doubts and her desires as to migrating to Bear Creek. It was at this time also that her face grew a little paler, and her friends thought that she was overworked, and Mrs. Flint feared she was losing her looks. It was at this time too that she grew very intimate with that great aunt over at Dunbarton, and from her received much comfort and strengthening. Never, said the old lady, especially if you can't love him. I do like him, said Molly, and he is very kind. Never, said the old lady again. When I die you'll have something, and that will not be long now. Molly flung her arms around her aunt and stopped her words with a kiss. And then one winter afternoon two years later came the last straw. The front door of the old house had shut. Out of it had stepped the persistent suitor. Mrs. Flint watched him drive away in his smart sleigh. That girl is a fool, she said furiously, and she came away from her bedroom window where she had posted herself for observation. Inside the old house a door had also shut. This was the door of Molly's own room, and there she sat in floods of tears, for she could not bear to hurt a man who loved her with all the power of love that was in him. It was about twilight when her door opened and an elderly lady came softly in. My dear, she ventured, and you were not able, oh mother, cried the girl, have you come to say that too? The next day Miss Wood had become very hard. In three weeks she had accepted the position on Bear Creek. In two months she started, heart heavy, but with a spirit craving the unknown. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of The Virginian This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Virginian by Owen Wister Chapter 9 The Spinster meets the unknown. On a Monday noon a small company of horsemen strung out along the trail from Sunk Creek to gather cattle over their allotted sweep of range. Spring was backward and they, as they rode galloping and gathering upon the cold week's work, cursed cheerily and occasionally sang. The Virginian was grave and bearing and of infrequent speech but he kept a song going a matter of some 79 verses. 78 were quite unprintable and rejoiced his brother cow-punchers monstrously. They, knowing him to be a singular man, forebore ever to press him and awaited his own humor lest he should weary of the lyric. And when, after a day of silence apparently Saturnine, he would lift his gentle voice and begin. If you go to monkey with my Lulu girl, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll cure of your heart with my razor and I'll shoot you with my pistol too. Then they would stridently take up each last line and keep it going three, four, ten times and kick holes in the ground to the swing of it. By the levels of Bear Creek that reach like inlets among the promontories of the lonely hills, they came upon the schoolhouse, roofed and ready for the first native Wyoming crop. It symbolized the dawn of a neighborhood and it brought a change into the wilderness air. The feel of it struck cold upon the free spirits of the cowpunchers and they told each other that what with women and children and wire fences this country would not long be a country for men. They stopped for a meal at an old comrades. They looked over his gate and there he was pattering among garden furrows. Picking nose gays inquired the virginian and the old comrade asked if they could not recognize potatoes except in the dish. But he grinned sheepishly at them too because they knew that he had not always lived in a garden. Then he took them into his house where they saw an object crawling on the floor with a handful of sulfur matches. He began to remove the matches but stopped an alarm at the vociferous result and his wife looked in from the kitchen to caution him about humoring little christopher. When she beheld the matches she was aghast but when she saw her baby grow quiet in the arms of the virginian she smiled at that cow puncher and returned to her kitchen. Then the virginian slowly spoke again How many little strangers have you got James? Only two. My ain't it most three years since you married? You mustn't let time creep ahead of you James. The father once more grinned at his guests who themselves turned sheepish and polite for Mrs Westfall came in brisk and hearty and set the meat upon the table. After that it was she who talked. The guests ate scrupulously muttering yes ma'am and no ma'am in their plates while their hostess told them of increasing families upon Bear Creek and the expected school teacher and little Alfred's early teething and how it was time for all of them to become husbands like James. The bachelors of the saddle listened always diffident but eating heartily to the end and soon after they rode away in a thoughtful clump. The wives of Bear Creek were few as yet and the homes scattered. The schoolhouse was only a sprig on the vast face of a world of elk and bear and uncertain Indians. But that night when the earth near the fire was littered with the cow puncher's beds the virginian was heard drawing to himself Alfred and Christopher oh sugar They found pleasure in the delicately chosen shade of this oath. He also recited to them a new verse about how he took his Lulu girl to the schoolhouse for to learn her ABC and as it was quite original and unprintable the camp laughed and swore joyfully and rolled in its blankets to sleep under the stars. Upon a Monday noon likewise for things will happen so some tearful people in petticoats waved handkerchiefs at a train that was just leaving Bennington Vermont a girl's face smiled back at them once and withdrew quickly for they must not see the smile die away. She had with her a little money a few clothes and in her mind a rigid determination neither to be a burden to her mother nor to give in to that mother's desires absence alone would enable her to carry out this determination. Beyond these things she possessed not much except spelling books a colonial miniature and that craving for the unknown which has been mentioned. If the ancestors that we carry shut up inside us take turns in dictating to us our actions and our state of mind undoubtedly grandmother stark was empress of molly's spirit upon this monday. At who's a junction which came soon she passed the uptrain bound back to her home and seeing the engineer and the conductor faces that she knew well her courage nearly failed her and she shut her eyes against this glimpse of the familiar things that she was leaving to keep herself steady she gripped tightly a little bunch of flowers in her hand. But something caused her eyes to open and there before her stood Sam Bannett asking if he might accompany her so far as Rotterdam Junction. No, she told him with a severity born from the struggle she was making with her grief. Not a mile with me not to Eagle Bridge goodbye. And Sam what did he do? He obeyed her I should like to be sorry for him but obedience was not a lover's part here. He hesitated the golden moment hung hovering the conductor cried all aboard the train went and there on the platform stood obedience Sam with his golden moment gone like a butterfly. After Rotterdam Junction which was some 40 minutes farther Molly Wood sat bravely up in the through car dwelling upon the unknown. She thought that she had attained it in Ohio on Tuesday morning and wrote a letter about it to Bennington. On Wednesday afternoon she felt sure and wrote a letter much more picturesque. But on the following day after breakfast at North Platte Nebraska she wrote a very long letter indeed and told them that she had seen a black pig on a white pile of buffalo bones catching drops of water in the air as they fell from the railroad tank. She also wrote that trees were extraordinarily scarce. Each hour westward from the pig confirmed this opinion and when she left the train at Rock Creek laid upon that fourth night in those days the trains were slower she knew that she had really attained the unknown and sent an expensive telegram to say that she was quite well. At six in the morning the stage drove away into the sage brush with her as its only passenger and by sundown she had passed through some of the primitive perils of the world. The second team virgin to harness and displeased with this novelty tried to take it off and went down to the bottom of a gully on its eight hind legs while miss wood sat mute and unflinching beside the driver. Therefore he when it was over and they on the proper road again invited her earnestly to be his wife during many of the next fifteen miles and told her of his snug cabin and his horses and his mine then she got down and rode inside independence and grandmother stark shining in her eye at point of rocks where they had supper and his drive ended her face distracted his heart and he told her once more about his cabin and lamentably hoped she would remember him she answered sweetly that she would try and gave him her hand after all he was a frank looking boy who had paid her the highest compliment that a boy or a man for that matter knows and it is said that molly stark in her day was not a new woman the new driver banished the first one from the maiden's mind he was not a frank looking boy and he had been taking whiskey all night long he took it while his passenger helpless and sleepless inside the lurching stage sat as upright as she possibly could nor did the voices that she heard dry bone reassure her sunrise found the white stage lurching eternally on across the alkali with a driver and a bottle on the box and a pale girl staring out at the plane and nodding in her handkerchief some utterly dead flowers they came to a river where the man bungled over the ford two wheels sank down over an edge and the canvas toppled like a descending kite the ripple came sucking through the upper spokes and as she felt the seat careen she put out her head and tremulously asked if anything was wrong but the driver was addressing his team with much language and also with the lash then a tall rider appeared close against the buried axels and took her out of the stage on his horse so suddenly that she screamed she felt splashes saw a swimming flood and found herself lifted down upon the shore the rider said something to her about cheering up and it's being all right but her wits were stock still so she did not speak and thank him after four days of train and thirty hours of stage she was having a little too much of the unknown at once then the tall man gently withdrew leaving her to become herself again she limply regarded the river pouring round the slanted stage and a number of horsemen with ropes who ride at the vehicle and got it quickly to dry land and disappeared at once with a herd of cattle uttering lusty yells she saw the tall one delaying beside the driver and speaking he spoke so quietly that not a word reached her until of a sudden the driver protested loudly the man had thrown something which turned out to be a bottle this twisted loftily and dived into the stream he said something more to the driver then put his hand on the saddle horn looked half lingeringly at the passenger on the bank dropped his grave eyes from hers and swinging upon his horse was gone just as the passenger opened her mouth and with inefficient voice murmured oh thank you at his departing back the driver drove up now a chasen creature he helped miss wood in and inquired after her welfare with a hanging head then meek as his own drenched horses he climbed back to his reins and nursed the stage on toward the bow-leg mountains much as if it had been a perambulator as for miss wood she sat recovering and she wondered what the man on the horse must think of her she knew that she was not ungrateful and that if he had given her an opportunity she would have explained to him if he supposed that she did not appreciate his act here into the midst of these meditations came an abrupt memory that she had screamed she could not be sure when she rehearsed the adventure from the beginning and found one or two further uncertainties how it had all been while she was on the horse for instance it was confusing to determine precisely what she had done with her arms she knew where one of his arms had been and the handkerchief with the flowers was gone she made a few rapid dives in search of it had she or had she not seen him putting something in his pocket and why had she behaved so unlike herself in a few miles miss wood entertained sentiments of maidenly resentment toward her rescuer and of maidenly hope to see him again to that river crossing he came again alone when the days were growing short the ford was dry sand and the stream a winding lane of shingle he found a pool pools always survived the year round in this stream and having watered his pony he lunched near the spot to which he had borne the frightened passenger that day where the flowing current had been he sat regarding the now extremely safe channel she certainly wouldn't need to grip me so close this morning he said as he pondered over his meal I reckon it will mightily astonish her when I tell her how harmless the torrent is looking he held out to his pony a slice of bread matted with sardines which the pony expertly accepted you're a plum piebiter you, Monty he continued Monty rubbed his nose on his master's shoulder I wouldn't trust you with berries and cream no sir not though you did rescue a drown and lady presently he tightened the forward cinch got in the saddle and the pony fell into his wise mechanical jog for he had come a long way and was going a long way and he knew this as well as the man did to use the language of cattle land steers had jumped to 75 this was a great and prosperous leap in their value to have flourished in that golden time you need not be dead now nor even middle-aged but it is Wyoming mythology already quite as fabulous as the high jumping cow indeed people gathered together and behaved themselves much in the same pleasant and improbable way Johnson County and Natrona and Converse and others to say nothing of the Cheyenne Club had been jumping over the moon for some weeks all on a count of steers and on the strength of this vigorous price of 75 the Stanton brothers were giving a barbecue at the goose egg outfit their ranch on bear creek of course the whole neighborhood was bitten and would come 40 miles to a man some would come further the virginian was coming 118 it had struck him rather suddenly as shall be made plain that he would like to see how they were getting along up there on bear creek they was how he put it to his acquaintances his acquaintances did not know that he had bought himself a pair of trousers and a scarf unnecessarily excellent for such a general visit they did not know that in the spring two days after the adventure with the stage he had learned accidentally who the lady in the stage was this he had kept to himself nor did the camp ever notice that he had ceased to sing that 80th stanza he had made about the ABC the stanza which was not printable he effaced it imperceptibly giving the boys the other 79 at judicious intervals they dreamed of no guile but merely saw in him whether frequenting camp or town the same not over angelic comrade whom they valued and could not wholly understand all spring he had ridden trail worked at ditches during summer and now he had just finished with the beef round up yesterday while he was spending a little comfortable money at the dry bone hog ranch a casual traveler from the north gossiped of bear creek and the fences up there and the farm crops the west falls and the young school marm from vermont for whom the tailors had built a cabin next door to theirs the traveler had not seen her but mrs. Taylor and all the ladies thought the world of her and lynn mclean had told him she was a way up in G she would have plenty of partners at this swinton barbecue great boon for the country wasn't it steers jumping that way the virginian heard asking no questions and left town in an hour with the scarf and trousers tied in his slicker behind his saddle after looking upon the ford again even though it was dry and not at all the same place he journeyed in attentively when you have been hard at work for months with no time to think of course you think a great deal during your first empty days step along you monti haas he said rousing after some while he disciplined monti who flattened his ears effectively and snorted why you surely ain't thinking of yourself as a hero she wasn't really a drowned in you piebiter he rested his serious glance upon the alkali she's not likely to have forgot that mix up though i guess i'll not remind her about gripping me and all that she wasn't the kind a man ought to josh about such things she had a right clear eye thus tall and loose in the saddle did he jog along the sixty miles which still lay between him and the dance end of chapter nine chapter ten of the virginian this libra vox recording is in the public domain the virginian by owen whister chapter ten where fancy was bread two camps in the open and the virginian's monty horse untired brought him to the swintons in good time for the barbecue the horse received good food at length while his rider was welcomed with good whiskey good whiskey for had not steers jumped to seventy five inside the goose egg kitchen many small delicacies were preparing and a steer was roasting outside the bed of flame under it showed steadily brighter against the dusk that was beginning to veil the lowlands the busy hosts went and came while men stood and men lay near the fire glow chalk I was there and Nebraska and trampus and honey Wigan with others enjoying the occasion but honey Wigan was enjoying himself he had an audience he was sitting up discoursing to it hello he said perceiving the virginian so you've dropped in for your turn number six ain't he boys depends who's a run in the counten said the virginian and stretched himself down among the audience I've saw him number one when nobody else was around said trampus how far away was your stand and when you beheld that inquired the lounging southerner well boys said Wigan I expect it will be miss school marm says who's number one tonight so she's arrived in this yeah country observed the virginian very casually arrived said trampus again where have you been grazing lately a right smart way from the mules Nebraska and the boys was telling me they'd missed you off the range again in her posed Wigan say Nebraska who have you offered your canary to the school marm said you mustn't giver Nebraska grinned wretchedly well she's a lady and she's square not taking a man's gift when she don't take the man but you'd ought to get back all them letters your rotor you sure ought to ask for them tell tales aw Shaw honey protested the youth it was well known that he could not write his name why if here ain't bouquet baldy cried the agile Wigan stooping to fresh pray found them slippers yet baldy tell you boys that was terrible sad luck baldy had did you hear about that baldy you know he can stay on a tame horse most as well as the school marm but just you give him a pair of young knit and needles and see him make him sweat he worked an elegant pair of slippers with pink cabbages on them for miss wood I bought them at medicine bow blundered baldy so you did assented the skillful comedian baldy he bought them and on the road to her cabin there at the tailors he got thinking they might be too big and he got studying what to do and he fixed up to tell her about his not being sure of the size and how she was to let him know if they dropped off her and he'd exchange him and when he got right near her door why he couldn't find his courage and so he slips the parcel under the fence and starts Sarah Nadiner but she ain't inside her cabin at all she's at supper next door with the tailors and baldy singing love has conquered pride and anger to a lone house Lynn McLean was coming up by Taylor's corral where Taylor's Texas bull was well it was terrible sad baldy's pants got tore but he fell inside the fence and Lynn drove the bull back and somebody stole them medicine bow galoshes are you going to knit her some more bouquet about half that ain't straight baldy commented with mildness the half that was tore off your pants well nevermind baldy Lynn will get left too same as all of you is there many inquired the virginian he was still stretched on his back looking up at the sky I don't know how many she's been used to where she was raised Wigan answered a kid stage driver come from a point of rocks one day and went back the next then the foreman of the 76 outfit and the horse wrangler from the bar circle L and two deputy marshals with stringing right along all got their tumble old judge Burridge from Cheyenne come up in August for a hunt and stayed round here and never hunted at all there was that horse thief awful good looking Taylor wanted to warn her about him but mrs. Taylor said she'd look after her if it was needed mr. horse thief gave it up quicker than most but the school arm couldn't have known he had a mrs. horse thief camped on poison spider till afterwards she wouldn't go riding with him she'll go with some taking a kid along bah said Trampas the virginian stopped looking at the sky and watched Trampas from where he lay I think she encourages a man some said poor Nebraska encourages because she lets you teach her how to shoot said Wigan well I don't guess I'm a judge I've always kind of kept away from them good women don't seem to think of anything to chat about to him the only folks I'd say she encourages is the school kids she kisses them riding and shooting and kissing the kids sneered Trampas that's a heap too pussy kitten for me they laughed the sagebrush audience is readily cynical look for the man I say Trampas pursued and ain't there she leaves Baldi sit on the fence while she and Lynn McLean they laughed loudly at the blackguard picture which he drew and the laugh stopped short for the virginian stood over Trampas you can rise up now and tell him you lie he said the man was still for a moment in the dead silence I thought you claimed you and her wasn't acquainted said he then stand on your legs you pole cat and say you're a liar Trampas's hand moved behind him quit that said the I'll break your neck the eye of a man is the prince of deadly weapons Trampas looked in the virginians and slowly rose I didn't mean he began and paused his face poisonously bloated well I'll call that sufficient keep a stand and still I ain't going to trouble you long in admitting yourself to be a liar you have spoke God's truth for once honey boys of hit town too frequent for any of us to play Sunday on the balance of the gang he stopped and surveyed public opinion seated around and carefully inexpressive attention we ain't a Christian outfit a little bit and maybe we have most forgotten what decency feels like but I reckon we haven't forgot what it means you can sit down now if you want the liar stood and sneered experimentally looking at public opinion but this changeful deity was no longer with him and he heard it variously assenting that so and she's a lady and otherwise excellently moralizing so he held his peace when however the virginian had departed to the roasting steer and public opinion relaxed into that comfort which we all experience when the sermon ends Trampus sat down amid the reviving cheerfulness and ventured again to be facetious shut your rank mouth said wiggin to him amiably I don't care whether he knows her or if he done it on principle I'll accept the round and up he gave us and say you'll swallow your dose too us boys will stand in with him in this so Trampus swallowed and what of the virginian he had championed the feeble and spoken honorably in meeting and according to all the constitutions and bylaws of morality he should have been walking in virtues a special calm but there it was he had spoken he had given them a peep through the keyhole at his inner man and as he prowled away from the assemblage before whom he stood convicted of decency it was vicious rather than virtuous that he felt other matters also disquieted him so Lynn McLean was hanging round that school marm yet he joined Ben Swinton in a seemingly Christian spirit he took some whiskey and praised the size of the barrel speaking with this host like this there certainly ain't going to be trouble about a second helping hope not we ought to have more trimmings though we're shy on ducks you have the barrel has Lynn McLean seen that no we tried for ducks away down as far as the laparrel outfit a real barbecue there's large thirsts on Bear Creek Lynn McLean will pass on ducks Lynn's not thirsty this month signed for one month has he signed he spoon in our school marm they claim she's a right sweet face girl yes yes awful agreeable and next thing you're fooled clean through you don't say she keeps a teaching the darn kids and it seems like a good grown-up man can't interest her you don't say there used to be all the ducks you wanted at the laparrel but their full cooks dead stuck on raising turkeys this year that must have been mighty close to a drowned in the school marm god at South Fork well I guess not when she's never spoken of any such thing that I've heard most likely the stage driver got it wrong then yes must have grounded somebody else here they come that's her ride in the horse there's the West Falls where are you running to to fix up got any soap around here yes shouted Swinton for the Virginian was now some distance away towels and everything in the dugout and he went to welcome his first formal guests the Virginian reached his saddle under a shed so she's never mentioned it said he untying his slicker for the trousers and scarf I didn't notice Lynn anywhere as a rounder he was over in the dugout now whipping off his overalls and soon he was excellently clean and ready except for the tie in his scarf and the part in his hair I'd have knowed her in Greenland he remarked he held the candle up and down at the looking glass and the looking glass up and down at his head it's mighty strange why she ain't mentioned that he worried the scarf a fold or two further and at length a trifle more than satisfied with his appearance he proceeded most serenely toward the sound of the tuning fiddles he passed through the storeroom behind the kitchen stepping lightly lest he should rouse the 10 or 12 babies that lay on the table or beneath it on Bear Creek babies and children always went with their parents to a dance because nurses were unknown so little Alfred and Christopher lay there among the wraps parallel and crosswise with little tailors and little carmeties and leaves and all the Bear Creek offspring that was not yet able to skip at large and hamper its indulgent elders in the ballroom why Lynn ain't here yet said the Virginian looking in upon the people there was Miss Wood standing up for the quadrill I didn't remember her hair was that pretty said he but ain't she a little little girl now she was in truth five feet three but then he could look away down on the top of her head salute your honey called the first fiddler all partners bowed to each other and as she turned Miss Wood saw the man in the doorway again as it had been at South Fork that day his eyes dropped from hers and she divining instantly why he had come after half a year thought of the handkerchief and of that scream of hers in the river and became filled with tyranny and anticipation for indeed he was fine to look upon so she danced away carefully unaware of his existence first lady center said her partner reminding her of her turn have you forgotten how it goes since last time Molly Wood did not forget again but quadrilled with the most sprightly devotion I see some new faces tonight she said presently you always do forget our poor faces said her partner oh no there's a stranger now who is that black man well he's from Virginia and he ain't allowed and he's black he's a tender foot I suppose that's rich too and so the simple partner explained a great deal about the virginian to Molly Wood at the end of the set she saw the man by the door take a step in her direction oh she said quickly to the partner how warm it is I must see how those babies are doing and she passed the virginian in a breeze of unconcern his eyes gravely lingered where she had gone she knowed me right away said he he looked for a moment then leaned against the door how warm it is said she well it ain't so screeching hot yeah and as for Russian after Alfred and Christopher when their natural mother is bumping around handy she certainly can't be offended he broke off and looked again where she had gone and then Miss Wood passed him brightly again and was dancing the shot-ish almost immediately oh yes she knows me the swarthy cow puncher mused she has to take trouble not to see me and what she's effusing at is mighty interesting hello returned Lynn McLean sourly he had just looked into the kitchen not dancing the Southerner inquired don't know how had scarlet fever and forgot your past life Lynn grinned better persuade the school marmed to learn it she's going to give me instruction huh went Mr. McLean and sculked out to the barrel why they claimed you weren't drinking this month said his friend following well I am here's luck the two pledged in 10 cups but I'm not waltzing with her blurted Mr. McLean grievously she called me an exception waltzing repeated the virginian quickly and hearing the fiddles he hastened away few in the Bear Creek country could waltz and with these few it was mostly an unsteered and ponderous exhibition therefore was the Souther bent upon profiting by his skill he entered the room and his lady saw him come where she sat alone for the moment and her thoughts grew a little hurried will you try a turn ma'am I beg your pardon it was a remote well schooled eye that she lifted now upon him if you like a waltz ma'am will you waltz with me you're from Virginia I understand said Molly Wood regarding him politely but not rising one gains authority immensely by keeping one's seat all good teachers know this yes ma'am from Virginia I've heard that Southerners have such good manners that's correct the cow puncher flushed but he spoke in his unvarying Lee gentle voice for in New England you know pursued Miss Molly noting his scarf and clean shaven chin and then again steadily meeting his eye gentlemen asked to be presented to ladies before they asked them to waltz he stood a moment before her deeper and deeper scarlet and the more she saw his handsome face the keener rose her excitement she waited for him to speak of the river for then she was going to be surprised and gradually to remember and finally to be very nice to him but he did not wait I ask your pardon lady said he and bowing walked off leaving her at once afraid that he might not come back but she had all together mistaken her man back he came serenely with Mr. Taylor and was duly presented to her thus were the conventions vindicated it can never be known what the cow puncher was going to say next for uncle Huey stepped up with a glass of water which he had left miss wood to bring and asking for a turn most graciously received it she danced away from a situation where she began to feel herself getting the worst of it one moment the virginian stared at his lady as she lightly circulated and then he went out to the barrel leave him for uncle Huey jealousy is a deep and delicate thing and works at spite in many ways the virginian had been ready to look at Lynn McLean with a hostile eye but finding him now beside the barrel he felt a brotherhood between himself and Lynn and his hostility had taken a new and whimsical direction here's how said he to McLean and they pledged each other in the 10 cups been getting them instructions said Mr. McLean grinning I thought I saw you learning your steps through the window here's your good health said the souther once more they pledged each other handsomely did she call you an exception or anything said Lynn well it would cipher out right close in that neighborhood here's how then cried the delighted Lynn over his cup just because you happened to come from Vermont continued Mr. McLean is no cause for extra pride shoe I was raised in Massachusetts myself and big men have been raised there too Daniel Webster and Israel Putnam and a lot of them politicians Virginia is a good little old state observed the southerner both of them was a sight ahead of Vermont she told me I was the first exception she'd struck what rule were you proven at the time Lynn well you see I started to kiss her you didn't shucks I didn't mean nothing I reckon you stopped mighty sudden why I'd been riding out with her riding to school riding from school and a coming and a going and she chatting cheerful and asking me a heap of questions all about myself every day and I not lying much neither and so I figured she wouldn't mind lots of them like it but she didn't you bet no said the virginian deeply proud of his lady who had slided him he had pulled her out of the water once and he had been her unrewarded night even today and he felt his grievance but he spoke not of it to Lynn for he felt also in memory her arms clinging round him as he carried her ashore upon his horse but he muttered plum ridiculous as her injustice struck him afresh while the outraged McLean told his tail trample is what she has done on me tonight and without notice we was starting to come here Taylor and Mrs. were ahead in the buggy and I was holding her horse and helping her up in the saddle like I'd done for days and days who was there to see us and I figured she'd not mind and she calls me an exception it ought to have just heard her about Western men respecting women so that's the last word we've spoke we come 25 miles then she's scooting in front and her horse kicking the sand in my face Mrs. Taylor she guessed something was up but she didn't tell Miss Wood did not tell not she she'll never open her head she can take care of herself you bet the fiddles sounded hilariously in the house and the feet also they had warmed up all together and their dancing figures crossed the windows back and forth the two cow punchers drew near to a window and looked in gloomily there she goes said Lynn with Uncle Huey again said the Virginians sourly you might suppose he didn't have a wife and twins to see the way he goes gamboling around Westfall has taken a turn with her now said McLean James exclaimed the Virginian he's another with a wife and family and he gets the dancing too there she goes with Taylor said Lynn presently another married man the Southerner commented they prowled round to the storeroom and passed through the kitchen to where the dancers were robustly tramping Miss Wood was still the partner of Mr. Taylor let's have some whiskey said the Virginian they had it and returned and the Virginians discussed and sense of injury grew deeper old Carmody has got her now he drawled he polkas like a landslide she learns his monkey face kid to spell dog and cow all the morning he'd ought to be tucked up cozy in his bed right now old Carmody ought they were standing in that place set apart for the sleeping children and just at this moment one of two babies that were stowed beneath the chair uttered a drowsy note a much louder cry indeed a chorus of lament would have been needed to reach the ears of the parents in the room beyond such was the noisy volume of the dance but in this quiet place the light sound caught Mr. McLean's attention and he turned to see if anything were wrong but both babies were sleeping peacefully them's Uncle Huey's twins he said how do you happen to know that inquired the virginian suddenly interested saw his wife put him under the chair so she could find him right off when she come to go home oh said the virginian thoughtfully oh find him right off yes Uncle Huey's twins he walked to a spot from which he could view the dance well he continued returning the school Maher must have taken quite a notion to Uncle Huey he has got her for this quadrill the virginian was now speaking without ranker but his words came with a slightly augmented draw and this with him was often a bad omen he now turned his eyes upon the collected babies wrapped in various colored shawls and knitted work nine ten eleven beautiful sleep and strangers he counted in a sweet voice any of them yarn Lynn not that I know of grinned Mr. McLean eleven twelve this yes little Christopher in the blue striped quilt or maybe that other yellow head is him the angels have commenced to drop in on us right smart along Bear Creek Lynn what trash are you talking anyway if they look so awful alike in the heavenly garden the gentle souther continued I just hate to be the folks that has the cutting of them out of the general heard and that's a right quaint notion to he added softly them under the chair or uncle Huey's didn't you tell me and stooping he lifted the torpid babies and placed them beneath the table no that ain't thorough he murmured with wonderful dexterity and solicitude for their welfare he removed the loose wrap which was around them and this soon led to an intricate process of exchange for a moment Mr. McLean had been staring at the virginian puzzled then with a joyful yelp of enlightenment he sprang to a bet him and while both busyed themselves with the shawls and quilts the unconscious parents went dancing vigorously on and the small occasional cries of their progeny did not reach them end of chapter 10 chapter 11 of the virginian this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the virginian by Owen Wister chapter 11 you're going to love me before we get through the Swinton barbecue was over the fiddles were silent the steer was eaten the barrel emptied or largely so and the tapers extinguished round the house and sunken fire all movement of guests was quiet the families were long departed homeward and after their hospital turbulence the Swinton slept the best fall drove through the night and as they neared their cabin there came from among the bundled wraps a still small voice Jim said his wife I said Alfred would catch cold Bosh Lizzy don't you fret he's a little more than a yearling and of course he'll snuffle and young James took a kiss from his love well how you can speak of Alfred that way calling him a yearling as if he was a calf and he just as much your child as mine see James Westfall why what under the sun do you mean there he goes again do hurry up home Jim he's got a real strange cough so they hurried home soon the nine miles were finished and good James was unhitching by his stable lantern while his wife in the house hastened to commit their offspring to bed the traces had dropped and each horse marched forward for further unbuckling when James heard himself called indeed there was that in his wife's voice which made him jerk out his pistol as he ran but it was no bear or Indian only two strange children on the bed his wife was glaring at them he sighed with relief and laid down the pistol put that on again James Westfall you'll need it look here well they won't bite who's are they where have you stowed iron where have I utterance foresook this mother for a moment and you ask me she continued ask Lynn McLean ask him that sets bulls on folks and steals slippers what he's done with our innocent lambs mixing them up with other people's coughing unhealthy brats that's Charlie Taylor and Alfred's clothes and I know Alfred didn't cough like that and I said to you it was strange and the other one that's been put in Christopher's new quilts it's not even a bup bup boy as this crime against society looned clear to James Westfall's understanding he sat down on the nearest piece of furniture and heedless of his wife's tears and his exchanged children broke into unregenerate laughter doubtless after his sharp alarm about the bear he was unstrung his lady however promptly restrung him and by the time they had repacked the now clamorous changelings and were rattling on their way to the tailors he began to share her outraged feelings properly as a husband and a father should but when he reached the tailors and learned from Miss Wood that at this house a child had been unwrapped whom nobody could at all identify and that Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were already far on the road to the Swentons James Westfall whipped up his horses and grew almost as thirsty for revenge as was his wife where the steer had been roasted the powdered ashes were now cold white and Mr. McLean feeling through his dreams the change of dawn come over the air set up cautiously among the outdoor slumberers and waked his neighbor day will be soon he whispered and we must light out of this I never suspicion you had that much of the devil in you before I reckon some of the fellows will act headstrong the Virginian murmured luxuriously among the warmth of his blankets I tell you we must skip said Lynn for the second time and he rubbed the Virginian's black head which alone was visible skip then you came muffled from within and keep yourself mighty scarce till they can appreciate our frolic the Southerner withdrew deeper into his bed and Mr. McLean informing him that he was a fool arose and saddled his horse from the saddle bag he brought a parcel and lightly laying this beside Boke Baldy he mounted and was gone when Baldy awoke later he found the parcel to be a pair of flowery slippers in selecting the inert Virginian as the fool Mr. McLean was scarcely wise it is the absent who are always guilty before ever Lynn could have been a mile in retreat the rattle of the wheels roused all of them and here came the tailors before the tailors knocking had brought the Swintons to their door other wheels sounded and here were Mr. and Mrs. Carmody and Uncle Huey with his wife and close after them Mr. Dowle alone who told how his wife had gone into one of her fits she upon whom Dr. Barker at Drybone had enjoying total abstinence from all excitement voices of women and children began to be uplifted the West Falls arrived in a lather and the Thomases and by sunrise what with fathers and mothers and spectators and loud offspring there was gathered such a meeting as has seldom been before among the generations of speaking men today you can hear legends of it from Texas to Montana but I am giving you the full particulars of course they pitched upon poor Lynn here was the Virginian doing his best holding horses and helping ladies descend while the name of McLean began to be muttered with threats soon a party led by Mr. Dow set forth in search of him and the Southerner debated a moment if he had better not put them on a wrong track but he concluded that they might safely go on searching Mrs. Westfall found Christopher at once in the green shawl of Anna Maria Dow but all was not achieved thus in the twinkling of an eye Mr. McLean had it appeared as James Westfall lugubriously pointed out not merely swapped the duds he had shuffled the whole dog on deck and they cursed this satanic invention the fathers were of moderate assistance it was the mothers who did the heavy work and by ten o'clock some unsolved problems grew so delicate that a lady's caucus was organized in a private room no admittance for men and what was done there I can only surmise during its progress the search party returned it had not found Mr. McLean it had found a tree with a notice pegged upon it reading God bless our home this was captured but success attended the caucus each mother emerged satisfied that she had received her own and each sire now that his family was itself again began to look at his neighbors sideways after a man has been angry enough to kill another man after the fire of righteous slaughter has raged in his heart as it had certainly raged for several hours in the hearts of these fathers the flame will usually burn itself out this will be so in a generous nature unless the cause of the anger is still unchanged but the children had been identified none had taken hurt all had been humanely given their nourishment the thing was over the day was beautiful attempting feast remained from the barbecue these bear creek fathers could not keep their ire at red heat most of them being as yet more their wives lovers than their children's parents began to see the mirthful side of the adventure and they ceased to feel very severely toward Lynn McLean not so the women they cried for vengeance but they cried in vain and were met with smiles mrs westfall argued long that punishment should be dealt the offender anyway she persisted it was real define of him putting that up on the tree I might forgive him but for that yes spoke the virginian in their midst that wasn't sort of right especially as I am the man you're hunting they sat dumb at his assurance come and kill me he continued round upon the party I'll not resist but they could not resist the way in which he had looked round upon them he had chosen the right moment for his confession as a captain of a horse awaits the proper time for a charge some rebukes he did receive the worst came from the mothers and all that he could say for himself was I am getting off too easy but what was your point said westfall blamed if I know anymore I expect it must have been the whiskey I would mind it less said mrs westfall if you looked a bit sorry or ashamed the virginian shook his head at her penitently I'm trying to he said and thus he sat disarming his accusers until they began to launch upon the copious remnants of the barbecue he did not join them at this meal in telling you that mrs dowell was the only lady absent upon this historic morning I was guilty of an inadvertence there was one other the virginian rode away sedately through the autumn sunshine and as he went he asked his montie horse a question do you reckon she'll have forgotten you too you piebiter said he instead of the new trousers the cow punchers leathered chaps were on his legs but he had the new scarf nodded at his neck most men would gladly have equaled him in appearance you montie said he will she be at home it was sunday and no school day and he found her in her cabin that stood next the taylor's house her eyes were very bright I'd thought I'd just call said he why that's such a pity mr mrs taylor are away yes they've been right busy that's why I thought I'd call will you come for a ride ma'am dear me I you can ride my horse he's gentle what and you walk no ma'am nor the two of us ride him this time either at this she turned entirely pink and he noticing went on quietly I'll catch up on a taylor's houses taylor knows me no I don't really think I could do that but thank you thank you very much I must go now and see how mrs taylor's fire is I'll look after that ma'am I'd like for you to go ride and mighty well you have no babies this mon and to be anxious after at this shaft grandmother's stark flashed awake deep within the spirit of her descendant and she made a haughty declaration of war I don't know what you mean sir she said now was his danger for it was easy to fall into mere crude impertinence and ask her why then did she speak thus abruptly there were various easy things of this kind for him to say and any rudeness would have lost him the battle but the virginian was not the man to lose such a battle in such a way his shaft had hit she thought he referred to those babies about whom last night she had shown such superfluous solicitude her conscience was guilty this was all that he had wished to make sure of before he began operations why I mean said he easily sitting down near the door that it's Sunday school don't hinder you from enjoying a ride today you'll teach the kids all the better for it tomorrow ma'am maybe it's your duty and he smiled at her my duty it's quite novel to have strangers am I a stranger he cut in firing his first broadside I was introduced ma'am he continued noting how she had flushed again and I would not be overstepping for the world I'll go away if you want and hereupon he quietly rose and stood hat in hand Molly was flustered she did not at all want him to go no one of her admirers had ever been like this creature the fringe leather chapereros the cartridge belt the flannel shirt the knotted scarf the neck these things were now an old story to her since her arrival she had seen young men and old and plenty dressed thus but worn by this man now standing by her door they seemed to radiate romance she did not want him to go and she wished to win her battle and now in her agitation she became suddenly severe as she had done at Hoosick Junction he should have a punishment to remember you call yourself a man I suppose she said but he did not tremble in the least her fierceness filled him with delight and the tender desire of ownership flooded through him a grown up responsible man she repeated yes ma'am I think so he now sat down again and you let them think that that Mr. McLean you dare not look me in the face and say that Mr. McLean did that last night I reckon I dasn't there I knew it I said so from the first and me a stranger to you he murmured it was his second broadside it left her badly crippled she was silent who did you mention it to ma'am she hoped she had him why are you afraid and she laughed lightly I told him myself and their astonishment seemed so genuine I just hate to think they had fooled me that thorough when they noted all along from you seeing me I did not see you I knew it must of course I did not tell anyone when I said I said so from the first I meant you can understand perfectly what I meant yes ma'am poor Molly was near stamping her foot and what sort of a trick she rushed on was that to play do you call it a manly thing to frighten and distress women because you for no reason at all I should never have imagined it could be the act of a person who wears a big pistol and rides a big horse I should be afraid to go riding with such an immature protector yes that was awful childish your words do cut a little for maybe there's been times when I have acted pretty near like a man but I certainly forgot to be introduced before I spoke to you last night because why you found me out dead in one thing won't you take a guess at this too I cannot sit guessing why people do not behave themselves you seem to know better well ma'am I've played square and owned up to you and that's not what you're doing by me I ask your pardon if I say what I have a right to say in language not as good as I'd like to talk to you with but it's South Fork Crossing who did any introducing did you complain I was a stranger then I know she flashed out then quite sweetly the driver told me it wasn't really so dangerous there you know that's not the point I'm making you are a grown-up woman a responsible woman you've come ever so far and all alone to a rough country to instruct young children that play games tag and hide and seek and foolery's they'll have to quit when they get old don't you think pretending you don't know a man his name's nothing but him a man whom you were glad enough to let assist you when somebody was needed don't you think that's mighty close to hide and seek them children plays I ain't so sure but what there's a pair of us children in this year room Molly Wood was regarding him saucily I don't think I like you said she that's all square enough you're going to love me before we get through I wish you'd come a ride in ma'am dear dear dear so I'm going to love you how will you do it I know men think they only need to sit and look strong and make chess set a girl goodness gracious I ain't making any chess at you laughter overcame him for a moment and Miss Wood liked his laugh very much please come a ride in he urged it's the prettiest kind of a day she looked at him frankly and there was a pause I will take back two things that I said to you she then answered him I believe that I do like you and I know that if I went riding with you I should not have an immature protector and then with a final gesture of acknowledgement she held out her hand to him and I have always wanted she said to thank you for what you did at the river he took her hand and his heart bounded you're a gentleman he exclaimed it was now her turn to be overcome with merriment I've always wanted to be a man she said I'm mighty glad you ain't said he looking at her but Molly had already received enough broadsides for one day she could allow no more of them and she took herself capably in hand where did you learn to make such pretty speeches she asked well never mind that one sees that you've had plenty of practice for one so young I'm 27 blurted the Virginia and knew instantly that he had spoken like a fool who would have dreamed it said Molly with well measured mockery she knew that she had scored at last and that this day was hers don't be too sure you are glad I'm not a man she now told him there was something like a challenge in her voice I risk it he remarked for I am almost 23 myself she concluded and she gave him a look on her own account and you'll not come a ridin' he persisted no she answered him no and he knew that he could not make her then I will tell you goodbye said he that I am coming again and next time I'll have along a gentle haws for you next time next time well perhaps I will go with you do you live far I live on Judge Henry's ranch over Yonda he pointed across the mountains it's on sunk creek a pretty rough trail but I can come here to see you in a day I reckon well I hope you'll certainly enjoy good health ma'am oh there's one thing said Mollie Wood calling after him rather quickly I'm not at all afraid of horses you didn't bring such a gentle one I was very tired that day and and I don't scream as a rule he turned and looked at her so that she could not meet his glance bless your heart said he will you give me one of those flowers oh certainly I am always so glad when people like them they're pretty near the color of your eyes never mind my eyes can't help it ma'am not since South Fork he put the flower in the leather band of his hat and rode away on his Monty Horse Miss Wood lingered a moment then made some steps toward her gate from which he could still be seen and then with something like a toss of the head she went in and shut her door later in the day the Virginian met Mr. McLean who looked at his hat and innocently quoted my Lulu picked a daisy don't you Lynn said the Southerner then I won't said Lynn thus for this occasion did the Virginian part from his lady and nothing said one way or another about the handkerchief that it disappeared during the South Fork incident as we fall asleep at night our thoughts will often ramble back and forth between the two worlds what color were his eyes wondered Molly on her pillow his mustache is not bristly like so many of them Sam never gave me such a look at who's exjunction no you can't come with me get off your horse the passengers are all staring and while Molly was thus dreaming that the Virginian had ridden his horse into the railroad car and sat down beside her the fire in the great stone chimney of her cabin flickered quietly its gleams now and again touching the miniature of grandmother's stark upon the wall camped on the sunk creek trail the Virginian was telling himself in his blankets I ain't too old for education maybe she will lend me books and I'll watch her ways and learn stand still Monty I can learn a lot more than the kids on that there's Monty you pie-biter stop he has ate up your book ma'am but I'll get you and then the Virginian was fast asleep end of chapter 11